The very hungry caterpillar – told with baby bumps!

Bump painting is my favourite thing! It’s wonderful to create art that becomes a treasured memory, I often look to children’s book illustrations for inspiration and when my friend Ruth told me she was pregnant, we decided to paint something from the beloved classic book The very hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle. Little did we know that this would inspire an epic bump painting journey of nine bump paints!

Using the book for reference, I painted the first page of the story, Ruth was around 25 weeks pregnant at this point.

Ruth loved having her bump painted as much as I loved painting so we decided to catch up the following week for another go, I decided to do another page of the book.

We got together once a week – schedules permitting, to continue the story…

By the time we got to “Friday” Ruth was around 30 weeks pregnant, as you look through the story, you can see the bump change and grow.

34 weeks…

38 weeks – the race was on to complete the story before baby decided to make an entrance so we did the last three in one sitting!

The the story is complete! The series of bumps look so lovely together in this photo collage..

This is project was a lot of fun to do and what a beautiful way to document and celebrate the pregnancy, thanks Ruth for your time, patience encouragement and friendship. Special thanks to this little lady too, big sister Florence, thanks for lending me your book!

Florence enjoyed being a part of our project and often had her face painted too, here she is posing with me, mum and bump as a little doggy!

Would you or someone you know like to have your bump painted? You don’t need to commit to a whole book! One off bump paints are just as special, have a look at my bump painting gallery to see all of my other bump paintings, I work in Bristol and can come to your home to paint your bump, most paintings take 1-2 hours depending on the design. Contact me for details, you can also follow me on Instagram to see my work, search #artybumps.